The NASS Cropland Data

Layer Program:

Potential Cooperator Benefits in

Washington State

What is NASS?

Agency Background

• United States Dept. of Agriculture

– National Agricultural Statistics Service

– June Agricultural Survey (JAS) – National in Scope• 41,000 farms visited

• 11,000 one-square mile sample area segments visited

• Most states contain between 150 – 400 segments

• Derive planted acreage estimate

– Cropland Data Layer piggybacks on JAS• Unbiased statistical estimator of crop area

– State and county level estimates

Program Purpose

• Remote sensing based cropland acreage

indications

– County and state level “major crops”

• Produce categorized crop specific Cropland

Data Layer

– Distribute to public (CD/DVD)

• Cost of reproduction

– Publish accuracy statistics/metadata

AL Cherokee 1 20 19 15499199

AL Cullman 1 20 43 15499199

AL De Kalb 1 20 49 15499199

AL Etowah 1 20 55 15499199

AL Jackson 1 20 71 15499199

AL Lauderdale 1 10 77 15499199

AL Lawrence 1 10 79 15499199

AL Limestone 1 10 83 15499199

AL Madison 1 10 89 15499199

AL Marshall 1 20 95 15499199

AL Morgan 1 10 103 15499199

AL Talladega 1 30 121 15499199

AL D10 Combined Counties1 10 888 15499199

AL D20 Combined Counties1 20 888 15499199

AL D30 Combined Counties1 30 888 15499199

AL D40 Combined Counties1 40 888 15499199

AL D50 Combined Counties1 50 888 15499199

AL D60 Combined Counties1 60 888 15499199

AL D10 Northern Valley1 10 999 15499199

AL D20 Mountains & Eastern Valley1 20 999 15499199

AL D30 Upper Plains & Piedmont1 30 999 15499199

AL D40 Black Belt 1 40 999 15499199

AL D50 Coastal Plains & Gulf Coast1 50 999 15499199

AL D60 Wiregrass 1 60 999 15499199

Program Players• USDA/NASS Research Division

– Spatial Analysis Research Section• Remote sensing analysts

• Software developers

• USDA/Foreign Ag Service

– PECAD (Production Estimates & Crop Assessment Division)

– Our satellite imagery source

• State/Federal/University Cooperators

– Seek partnerships • Digitizing & editing

• Remote sensing analysts

23 States & Program Cooperators

Cropland Data Layer Benefits

• Internal

– Digitize the entire June Agricultural Survey (JAS)

• Cleans up JAS problems

– Cropland acreage indications

– Include other data sets for training (sharing)

• Vector or raster

– Create annual CDL products

Cropland Data Layer Benefits

• External

– Commercial image format - GeoTIFF

– Ortho-rectified image product• MDA GeoCover base

– Detailed breakdown of cropland area

– Distribute CDL into public domain

– Access into FAS image archive

– Access to NASS software and training

– New methods address non-ag areas

Program Resources

Hardware

• Computational intensive

jobs (i.e. cluster/classify/

regression/mosaic)

– Windows XP

• Digitizing/ground truth

editing

– Windows XP

Software

• Image processing– PEDITOR public domain

• Digitizing/ground truth– Remote Sensing Project

• Batch job processing– XLNT – COTS

– www.advsyscon.com

• New research - See5.0– www.rulequest.com

Program “In-House” Software

• PEDITOR - 1970’s– Developed in Delphi, Pascal and Fortran

– Performs• Digitizing/clustering/classification/estimation/mosaicking

• Optimized for dual processors

• “Expert” rules built into processing routines

– Optimized for area sampling frame processing

• Remote Sensing Project (RSP) – 1990’s– Developed in Microsoft Visual FoxPro

– Manages ground truth database

– Performs digitizing and ground truth editing

Acreage Estimation Inputs

Satellite

Images

Area Frame

Strata Boundaries

Segment

Boundaries

Section D

from Area

Questionnaire

FAS Archive Inventory

Why Not Landsat?

Landsat 7 ETM+

SLC failureLandsat 5 TM

Solar Array

Indian Remote Sensing Satellite:

ResourceSat-1

Advanced Wide Field Sensor

(AWiFS)

– 370 km swath per quad

– 740 km combined

– 56 m resolution at nadir

– 70 m resolution at scene edges

– Launched 2003

Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS)

Spectral Bands:

– B2: 0.52-0.59 (Visible Green)

– B3: 0.62-0.68 (Visible Red)

– B4: 0.77-0.86 (Near Infrared

– B5: 1.55-1.70 (Middle infrared)

5 day repeat cycle

AWiFS Scene Footprints

All scenes ortho-rectified by GeoEye

AWiFS Full

Scene

6/19/05

Area Sampling Frame

• Stratify based on percent cultivated land

• Subdivide strata into primary sampling units or

PSU's

– Selected PSU's divided into secondary sampling

units or segments

– Segments are selected randomly & used in

successive years

– 20 percent segment rotation/year

• Entire sample replaced every 5 years

JAS Questionnaire

• Enumerators account for all land usage in segment

• Draw off field location by direct observation

• Directly link questionnaire to segment photo

Segment Boundaries

• June Agricultural Survey (JAS) segments

– Enumerator records field extents, cover types,

and acreage

Program Timeline

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

Seg Prep

Seg Digitizing

Scene Select

Seg Cleanup

Scene Process

Cluster/Classify

Estimation

Mosaic

complete

started

started

Classification Overview

Training Data

Raw image

Categorized output

Raw image

Categorized output

Training Data

Scene Analysis Districts

• Can be defined by

– Contiguous same date coverage

– Scene edge or county boundary

• Cloud free or near

cloud free dates

• Unitemporal

– One date

• Multi-temporal

– Two date(s) overlay

Regression Template

Mosaic Method

• Run block correlation between all raw images and MDA’s GeoCover Stock Mosaic– Co-register raw images to GeoCover’s band 2 (green)

• Register all categorized scenes to GeoCover base– Use calibration coefficients

• Mosaic all categorized images– Establish scene overlap priorities

– Clip by scene edge or county boundary

– Mask out clouds via priority schemes

State-wide CDL

Distribution

• Held until county estimates released

• Bundle images with ESRI’s ArcReader

– Ancillary vector layers

– Area Sampling Frame

• No copyright restrictions

• Publish accuracy statistics

Bingham County, ID CDL

AWiFS

Program Summary

Raw Satellite Image Area Sampling Frame Segment Boundaries JAS Questionnaire

Mosaicked CDLCategorized Images Estimates

New Program Research

• Regression tree analysis• See5.0 www.rulequest.com

• Use Erdas Imagine to prep imagery

• Allows for overlay of ancillary dataset masks

– NLCD/MRLC

• Analyze numerous image layers

• Builds regression trees based on points

New Program Research• Evaluate SAS as estimator

• Using FSA as training data

Pixel Sq meter/acres- .2224 Pixel Sq meters/acres - .2224

Landsat TM Rice AWiFS Rice

-4

-2

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

Source of Estimate

Arkansas State Level Estimates as % Over/Under

Agricultural Statistics Board (Final)%

Ove

r/U

nd

er

AS

B F

ina

l

Corn

Soybeans

Cotton

Rice

June Ag Landsat-TM AWiFS

Noteworthy CDL Uses

Other potential research avenues…

http://www.goodfruit.com/briefs.php?brief=183

http://www.esri.com/news/arcnews/summer06articles/florida-commercial.html

CDL Conclusion

• Seeking partnerships/

opportunities

• Publish CDL & accuracy

assessment

– GeoTIFF images

– .html

• Evaluate new methods for

operational use

Remember, in no

case is farmer

reported data

revealed or derivable

from the public use

Cropland Data Layer

DVD/CD-ROM's